Part One: That Which is Most Precious
by Majenta
Summary: OK, somebody had to write this fic, and I had to write it...Gollum/Frodo...please r/r, this is the 1st fic i've posted!


Title: That Which is Precious   
Author: Majenta   
Contains: massive angst/slash (Frodo/Sam, Frodo/Gollum)   
Rating: PG-13   
Disclaimer: I do not own these lovely characters and I'm sure that Tolkien would smack me if he read this but the truth is simply this: somebody had to write this fic, and I had be the one to write it. And yes, this is a pretty gross idea but . . . hey, I have sympathy for Gollum, what can I say?   
  
Frodo awoke in the hot, clammy day. The sun suffocated between the thick canopy of trees, heating the air. There were battle drums in the air, the forest was unable to silence those. He tucked his hand in his shirt, beneath the mithril, and took the ring in his palm. His hand grew sweaty around it, then began to shake. His stomach turning, he leaned up on his elbows and looked around in the dim light of the forest underbelly. He was alone. There were scattered beds of flattened leaves and crumpled tiny night flowers that they'd crushed in the night, walking, straying near the water. Frodo leaned towards the pond and put his hands in, taking the water into his mouth and over the back of his neck. The heaviness of the ring had become an ache against his chest. He struggled to sit up and take more water into his hands, drinking deeply. His throat burned, his eyes burned. He shrugged off his shirt and forced himself up. The drums stopped, or faded, and the forest was a suitable, terrifying darkness. He sat against a mossy log and rubbed his hands together.   
"Sam?" he called weakly. He'd called that name many times and it felt good to try and call it again, even as Sam had been lost far from there. He had been lost four days ago in the dead swamp. Frodo touched his face, his dark curls, and bent down towards his knees, trembling. "I wish you were here."   
He shut his eyes hard, trying to reconstruct the way Sam's hand felt on his, or the way his hair felt. He tried to reassemble the dizziness of nightfall when Sam had curled into his body their last night in Rivendel, touching him innocently, experimentally. He hadn't felt good since then, since he was touched like that. By Sam. The day was lifting, the heaviness of the heat beneath the dark canopy of trees was starting to settle and thicken, then evaporate. Frodo felt sweat prickle between his shoulder blades, then beneath where the ring was resting. It left a rawness on his skin, from rubbing beneath the mithril. He fancied that there would be a dim, milky scar there sometime, if Gandalf's wisdom proved real. Bilbo was meant to find the ring, as you were meant to carry it. That alone should bring you comfort. He wondered then if it ever had. If it ever would.   
  
The night swept in as Frodo dozed against a great, twisting tree, its branches hanging low enough to touch the water. His body ached mournfully and longed to fall back in on itself, his skin vanishing into shadow. He had grown thin and pale, his hair was limp and damp against his forehead. His eyes were heavy lidded when Gollum crept out from his hiding place, always with his fingers over his eyes at first, avoiding the soft light of the moon that broke through the heavy trees in one or two places,   
"We hates the white face, yes, we hates it, precious." He paused, balanced with one foot poised to step forward like a cat, and waited for Frodo's eyes to flutter open, then he slumped forward, his milky eyes flaming green. "Is Master awake? Has he slept beautifully? Has he slept long?" Frodo said nothing. He ran his fingers through the marsh grass and something deep within him trembled inexhaustibly, forcing him awake. For a moment, his dim reflection in the water holds Sam's face and he shakes harder, clutching at his chest.   
"I think I'd like to rest a little more."   
Gollum's hiss of air was high and urgent, "Not safe, not smart. Sméagol shows you the way, safer way out of the swamp. Master will end up like his other hobbit. Master does not think."   
"I think," he sighed, "I think I'd like to rest a little more." He cradled his head in his hands and closed his eyes again, leaning down to feel the mixed roughness and moisture of the forest ground. The drums still did not beat in the distance. Frodo curled tight around himself and Gollum sat with his knees to his chest at the edge of the water, his long spider hands spread out on the ground beside him.   
"Master cannot listen."   
"Master misses his friend too much tonight," Frodo whispered, "The precious is weighing down Master's heart. He is too tired, tonight, for walking."   
The silence felt good and it kept back tears for a little while, but only a little while. They began to leak down Frodo's cold cheeks, glossy and cleaner than the hot air and Gollum looked terrified when he saw them. He put his fingers to his lips and took long, rattling breaths. The swamps breathed in and out, Frodo's heart beat long and slow and the tears tangled in his sweaty hair. He wanted to crush the ring into his heart, where he might carry it and perish of it, but where it would be safe. He wanted the journey to end. He wanted the nights and the days to end with it. Gollum sank down near to the ground, looking into Frodo's face where he lay. Something in him was shaking and crying out. He tapped his long fingers together restlessly. He took a few breathes in and out before speaking.   
"Sméagol catches Master some food, yes? Master must eat, must spoil food by cooking but must eat. I fishes for him."   
"No," Frodo sighed shakily, "No, you don't have to. There are some lembas in my satchel."   
Gollum made a face and scrambled towards Frodo's discarded shirt, which lay crumpled against his pack. He undid the straps with his skinny fingers, he searched them eagerly like a bird digs for string with its beak. He made a wretched face, taking one of the lembas in his hands, and giving it to Frodo, holding it far away from himself as if it gave off a terrible scent. Frodo ignored it, he took the food and crawled towards the edge of the water, biting into the flaky crust.   
"You're kind of a picky eater, you know that?" He wiped at his eyes but more tears leaked from them. He couldn't taste the food, not really, but he felt the effect of it in his system. Some of the pain in his muscles calmed, he swallowed the cream inside and gnawed at the crust again. Gollum looked furious.   
"Master and his picky friend doesn't like our foods, precious, no, gollum. Master is unfair to us, yessss, but Sméagol keeps his promises. He is a good Sméagol. He brings Master his icky elves food. He is good to Master.   
"Yes, you are." Sobs welled up in Frodo's throat, "I'm sorry." Gollum's harmless annoyance, his jump from voice to voice and loyalty to loyalty didn't usually pack the punch that Frodo felt tonight. He felt guilty tonight, and tired. He longed for touching, for Sam's warm, rough gardener's hands. He put his face in his hands. He pushed himself to his feet and waded into the shallow water, rubbing at his eyes. He gasped when Gollum took him roughly by the shoulders from behind, pulling him backwards.   
"Water is deep, Master will fall in and cry more tears. Stay at the edges."   
Frodo smiled and let his head fall onto his chest, unnerved and amazed at the bizarre feel of Gollum's hands against the bare skin of his arms beyond the shining silver mithril. He pulled away and sat down again, his skin awakened and burning where hands no longer touched him. "I forgot, thank you." Gollum's eyes were burning softly. He sat very near to Frodo at the edge of the water and splashed his hands in the dark ripples.   
"I sees you is missing your friend."   
"Yes."   
"Sméagol had a looksies for him," he said mournfully, "Maybe he is okay."   
Frodo sighed and closed his eyes. His chest ached, "We were lovers, you know." When he felt how dense his words made the silence, he went on. "Just one night, in Rivendell before we left. I thought I'd fallen in love." He touched his face, opening his heavy lids to look out across the marshy water. Moonlight was breaking through the trees far ahead and he knew how it hurt Gollum's eyes. "Now everything's really gone to hell. I sure picked a bad time to fall in love." Gollum's long fingers were digging into the soft earth. He was watching Frodo with a fascination he had never before possessed. He muttered softly to himself, his eyes flashing. Frodo felt very exposed. "Sorry, if you didn't want to know that." Gollum continued to mutter, shaking his head. The moonlight broke over his face and Frodo saw that it once must have looked very much like his. Gollum flinched and his eyes fluttered shut, his fingers crossing over his lids. "We hates the white face, precious, my love, our eyes hurt."   
"Do you remember much about before you found precious, Sméagol?"   
He looked startled, "Before precious?"   
"About where you used to live, a long time ago?"   
Gollum looked uncomfortable. He twisted his hands, "We doesn't remember. We doesn't remember anything." Frodo finished off the lembas and brushed the flakes of crust from his hands, sighing. "Sam's the only person I've ever been with. Were you married, all that time ago?"   
"We doesn't remember, precious."   
Frodo sighed and lay back in the soft ground, putting his arm across his brow. He saw a few stars winking between the trees. "The sky looks like it might fall down on us." Gollum gave him an awkward look, then lay down beside him, his bony knees tipping the shadows where they bent. Frodo both longed for and was repulsed by his nearness. He closed his eyes and his stomach turned, hungry and nauseous all at once. He felt Gollum's frog-like fingertips pressing at his shoulder, "Master should rest. I keep watch, yes, I make it safe while Master rests. He is so tired." Frodo sighed gratefully, considering Gollum's dry voice, his wrinkled skin, in the pictures that his mind had already preserved for him. He remembered what Gandalf had said of him, that he both loved and hated the ring, as he both loved and hated himself. Frodo now found that he felt much the same for the half-beast, half-friend. He both loved and hated him. He let his elbow touch Gollum's between them and they both jumped a little. Gollum sat up again and knotted his fingers together. His expression bordered on a strange, eerie eagerness that Frodo could not sort through. His eyes were green and darkling fire, terrifying and searching. His breath was cold and shallow. "Is Master having crying again, my love?" Frodo smiled, his face aching. His body was lead and unease upon the soft earth, the wet marshy smell and softness. His eyes fluttered sleepily and he lay his head against his shoulder, gazing up at the stars.   
"I just wish he'd find me." The night stretched on forever, "Just one more time."   
"Sméagol thinks that Master would know if anything nasty happenses to his Sam."   
"You think so?"   
Gollum smiled, a strange, penetrating expression. His teeth had grown small and sharp, dark and rotten like the rest of his body, but there was something undeniably recognizable in him that Frodo longed to find. He trembled, "You can forget, so fast, what it's like to be touched." Silently, Gollum leaned up over him and took soft hold of his wrists, their eyes locking until Frodo's closed. He gave in, helplessly.   
Overhead, night birds flew and Frodo's thoughts drifted to madness under the thick canopy of shadow. He lay still a long time, the wet earth both cold and hot against his naked skin long after Gollum had vanished guiltily, horribly into the darkness around the water. Frodo touched the ring on his chest, trembling, then pulled the silvery mithril back on over his skin, washing his face in the water. His hands shook, his body convulsed and suddenly he was weeping into the water. He waded in, desperate to retrieve the feeling of being untouched since Sam's hands. He felt the shallowness give way to dark, deep water, just as Gollum had said it would, and he swam out into the darkness, the cold. Closing his eyes, beating his arms hard at the water to drown out his crying. He took it back now, what he'd said. He had not wanted to be touched. He had not cared to have forgotten. But he would have liked just one kiss, one thing that had not been given to him that night, but there was only one boy he wanted a kiss from. Frodo imagined that he saw Sam swimming to him in the deep, dark water, his arms open and the leaden pain of the journey gone from his face.   
"You know you can't swim," he'd laugh, taking Sam into his arms. The last time he'd ever have to wait to feel his nearness again, the last time he'd wait to see him again.   
"But I could swim to you, Mr. Frodo, anytime. I could swim to you."   
Frodo waded from the water and pulled his clothes on over his wet skin, stumbling into the clearing, fitting his hand into his shirt. For a moment, he thought that perhaps the ring was gone, but it rested there still, rubbing raw at his skin.   
"Sam," he called out into the darkness, dashing through the trees, "Sam!" There was an uncertainty, yes, and a suffering that came tied together with everything that Frodo undertook, or wanted. But there was one thing that had made his journey bearable. "Sam!" He burst through the trees into a clearing of brilliant moonlight and he tipped his face to the sky, hands against his chest. So perhaps all did happen for a reason, perhaps he was meant to bear the ring. Then, most certainly, he was meant to fall in love. His search was desperate, his search was only his, as was his quest. But for some strange reason, then, Frodo found the first trembling of optimism in himself, just as he'd found Sam's hand in his. They could find each other again, if they had come this far. Frodo closed his eyes and pictured Sam in the clearing, just as he'd seen him in the water. Careless. Love. He was opening his arms, he was the resolution. Frodo fell into the shadow of the forest, half-blinded by his dream, but for the first time in days, he did not feel the weight of the ring against his chest.   
~ end ~ 


End file.
